September 2016
VCSA Migration Tool officially GAs w/vSphere 6.0 Update 2m
VMware has released the official Windows vCenter Server to vCenter Server Appliance Migration tool. VCSA vSphere 6.0 Update 2m Check out the great article from William Lam Also found these great resources on github here As of writing (16-09-2016) there is still no support to migrate windows vCenter Server 6.0 to VCSA 6.0. For now only Windows vCenter vSphere 5.5 to VCSA 6 is supported ill update the post if this changes enjoy
Deploy multiple VMs at the same time
I found a nice script to deploy multiple VMs at the same time on the VMware Community site. i adjusted it a lil bit to meet my needs and tested it on vSphere 6.0 Build 2997665 here is the script i Used thank you EKardinal
July 2016
KEMP load balancer Exchange 2016
So I started to experiment with KEMP load balancer free edition, wich you can get here. Kemp has cool templates for a lot of services you need to configure. check out the templates here. So I needed a load balancer for my exchange 2016 servers DAG and I went to download the template "Core services: MAPI, SMTP and Unified HTTP/HTTPS" Log into your kemp load balancer and upload the template "Virtual Services - Manage Templates". click on "Add new Template" [...]
Exchange 2016 limits
Exchange 2016 limits. Some limits of exchange 2016 I gathered: (post comment if you find more) Memory Per Exchange Server Instance 96 GB (VMware best practice guide) Number of CPUs per Exchange Server Instance 24 (VMware best practice guide) Exchange Server 2016 Standard Edition – maximum of 5 mounted databases per server Exchange Server 2016 Enterprise Edition – maximum of 100 mounted databases per server Maximum size of Exchange Mailbox database is 16 TB (Microsoft recommends 2TB / mailbox database) [...]
Veeam direct SAN Access mode.
Sometimes I still run into customer who don't use direct SAN access mode for backing up there VM's taking this from the veeam website (here) you still need to add iSCSI targets and disable automount in windows Requirements for the Direct SAN Access Mode To use the Direct SAN access transport mode, make sure that the following requirements are met: A backup proxy working in the Direct SAN Access transport mode can be deployed on a physical or virtual machine. [...]
June 2016
VMware nested ESXi 6.x
Here are some steps to consider when create a nested ESXi Host. These steps are done on a vSphere webclient. First adjust your security on your switch so the traffic can pass through your nested ESXi host vSwitch: Select your host and click on the manage tab. Go to the networking section and select virtual switch. Edit the switch and select your security settings. Make sure your promiscuous mode is on accepted DvSwitch: Go to Home -> networking. Select your [...]
vSphere HTML5 Web Client
Here is a small video of how to deploy the vSphere HTML5 Web Client on a Windows vCenter server https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvFkRTR06l0
vSphere Web Client integration plugin problems
When installing a new vSphere environment i always forget the IE settings to make the web client plugin work So here is a short overview for the correct settings in IE11. (for vSphere 5.5 and 6.x) and installation of the client plugin First uninstall web client integration plugin if you already installed it. After that, do your IE settings first before installing the plugin again. So open IE and go to settings and click on manage add-ons. Look for "Shockwave [...]
May 2016
Vmware Certification manager
Vmware has a cool new manager for your certifications check it out: https://www.certmetrics.com/vmware/
Free Loadbalancer
After some searchig after a load balancer i run into the website http://freeloadbalancer.com/ from KEMP Technologies The free edition has all the features of the full version. only 20Mbps bandwith limit. test it out. good place to start if you need loadbalancer for exchange, vcloud, sharepoint, etc...